Hinckley has a history going back to Saxon times. By the time of the Domesday Book in 1086, Hinckley was quite a large village, and grew over the course of the following 200 years into a small market town—a market was first recorded there in 1311. To the west of Hinckley lies Saxon Paddock where in 2000 archaeologists from Northampton University discovered a Romano-British settlement and later Saxon items.